Moving In A New Direction

 It has been quite a while since i updated this blog, the past month has been crazy, after my jumper show we went to the Boyd Martin clinic and to WEC Ocala (blog post coming soon) came back from that trip had another jumper show, went to a waterpark trip with some friends, and now here I am, right back at it. 

• We have a CT coming up in a week, I've officially chosen to compete at starter level so he can dip his toes into eventing
• Our rides have been focused more on dressage and moving into contact and less on our jumping

I think starter will be a good level for him to start with, the goal is always to keep it challenging enough so that he won't get bored, but not to high or fast that he turns into a rocket... and i think starter does that for him. 

The weather has also finally cut us some slack, it's finally warm and in the 70's and dry (it was so wet for 2-3 weeks we could barely even trot in the rings and don't even get me started on the pasture conditions) 

"snacks?"

Sindri also officially turned 7 so he got his own little birthday party.

Like I said we have been working on dressage and i feel like his "frame" has improved quite a lot from when we first started working on it.

His trot before I started working with him on it

his trot in my most recent ride

his canter when i first started with him

his canter in our most recent ride

Its slow improvement but its big improvement. I also like that I'm the only one who rides him right now, my trainer does ride him once a week and his owners friend occasionally but i'm the only one consistently riding him 3 day a week, so it's different than any of my other leases, because i can feel the difference that I have made in him instead of wondering was that me or my trainer or that one lesson kid. It's also different with having my trainer only riding him once a week I feel more tuned in on the details because she isn't going to step in and fix him for me that my job now.

My current wallpaper 😂

I'm so glad that the weather has gotten nicer and drier because the horses are living in swamps right now, sindri has developed rain rot of his back legs from being in the mud all day and Chai has gotten thrush in her feet so its been a battle trying to keep the rain rot and thrush away but i think we might finally win.

little bit of light rain coming but not much!!!!!

I have also started wearing sunglasses while I ride, you can see the in some of the pictures and videos but they are wrap around ones to help keep as much sun out of my eyes as possible... I have dysautonomia, a condition with my autonomic nervous system meaning the things I cant control (my blood pressure, my heart rate, the dilation in my eyes, etc.) don't work as well as they should, light sensitivity being one of my symptoms, so the sunglasses have been helping with that.

the sunglasses